Opponents of the cameras say the issue has always been money, not safety as the cameras’ proponents consistently declare.

Ph.D. students Matt Loftis, Aleks Ksiazkiewicz and Professor Robert Stein, of Rice University’s Political Science Department, have published a 10-page study that tracked collisions at the 50 city intersections with red-light cameras (Stein said it was not funded by the red-light camera vendor). They found an average reduction of nearly 30 percent — 6.6 collisions a year — at each intersection where a camera was installed. The Rice team’s calculations show that accidents decreased at every intersection.

The Chronicle’s James Pinkerton, though, found that crashes decreased in the five months after Parker turned them off.

46 Responses

Wrong buthead. The point here is that people run red-lights a lot less when they know they will be photographed and that results in less accidents.

The voting part (not the issue here) is about how freedom loving Texans got fooled into letting those who want to run red-lights at will get their way on this issue in the voting booth.

It’s too bad that we can’t put folks who think like you about use of red-light cameras first in line to be killed by the next red-light runner. The randomness of who get killed by red-light runners is the hard part to take.

Craig has his head up in his netherregions.
He’s one of those who will give up civil rights…(um, does DUE PROCESS mean anything to Craig? I’d be suprised to find he even knows that is!)…for security.
Relying on machinery to do what humans..LEO…should do is foolhardy and only encourages a ‘big brother’ type government.

The yellow’s light there for this point, safety. It’s intended to prevent anyone from accidently being in the intersection at a red light. A lot of people accelerate when they see the yellow light, trying to beat the light.
A “strobing green light” wouldn’t be a too bad as a warning to the yellow light, which is a warning for red light. But, I think it’ll take drivers awhile to figure out a flashing green light. Some of them don’t know what a flashing yellow light means.

Uh, if the collision never happened how do they know it was prevented, or is this something researchers made up like the downing polar bears BS that was in Algores fantasy movie. Vehicle accidents have been going down in general anyway.

To come to the conclusion that statistics show that turning off the cameras so that drivers can run, or roll through, red lights defies logic or common sense. Running or rolling through red lights obviously carries more risk than stopping. And having Paul Kobosh, described as traffic attorney, lead the charge to have the cameras turned off indicates just what bottom feeders attorneys of his type are. It is self serving for him to want to assure that his number of clients aren’t reduced by turning off the cameras. It is apparent that he has no interest in making Houston streets safer.

This is a nonissue. The people have voted. The cameras should be turned off!!! Period!! It shouldn’t matter which side of the camera issue you are on. If the will of the poeple can be overturned on this issue, it can happen again on something else. This is no longer a debate over whether the cameras are good or bad. This is a debate over whether or not we still live in a democracy on the local level.

Yep, I saw it first hand. Stopped at an intersection and darned if that SuperCamera didn’t jump right off that pole and physically stopped two cars from hitting. Most amazing thing I have ever seen………….What a load of CR@P. Nothing more than a revenue generator.

I dont care what anybody says, this city is safer and better off with these cameras. And this coming from a fellow who has recieved 17 citations to date. Yes I run red lights and yes I pay my fines quickly and promptly. But it don’t bother me none, because everytime I pay another fine I know its going to both the great city I live in and a great cooperation in ATS. My nephew works for them and he tells me they would bend over backwards for him. He even took the whole family to Hawaii last year. I will go to my grave standing up for these cameras and Anise Parker. I voted for her once and she earned my vote again. This woman will go to bat for the city as she is proving over and over again to the naysayers. If you love Houston then learn to love the cameras, because their part of our culture. If you dont like them, then move.

This is purely a revenue raising issue and, if left unchallenged, is the beginning of a slippery slope where the city starts issuing fines using cameras for any infraction you can imagine. The voters voted the cameras out. City government has chosen to ignore them. Time to look at new government. I would be interested in the whole process surrounding the contract negotiation. WHO at City Hall allowed a $20M breakage fee in the contract (how many trips, dinners, presents did people surrounding the contract receive???) Also now that the cameras have been turned back on…….what is the city really doing with the money……..? I am sure that would be an interesting investigation.

The results of this study are, as expected, despite all the ignorant posts to the contrary. The red light cameras are an aid in an effort to dissuade potential traffic violators from causing injury to themselves and others. Believe the penalty for a motorist deliberately running a red light should be much more severe considering the possible result of their irresponsible actions.

The cameras still create a parallel system by which punishment is dealt to the owner (not driver)of a vehicle without the constitutional protections of the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments.

Why don’t we just create a parallel civil fee for every criminal act and that way we can avoid that whole messy, right to a trial, right against self-incrimination, judged by your peers circus??

Why not make murder, robbery, and assault subject to the same scheme, mail the accused a “notice of violation”, and avoid the whole court system? We all “KNOW” that we’ll be safer, and heck we could even get a private company to just harness all the security cameras we have in place today for a piece of the pie. (sarcasm off)

Seriously. If it’s OK for “red light runners”, why not for violent criminals? Of course it’s a ridiculous idea. Just like the current RLC system is ridiculous.

Why are so many people willing to surrender their rights? The rights earned with the blood of our brothers, fathers, and children?

Really? What about economics as a factor? We were in the middle of a full-blown recession in 2009 (but in a boom in 2006), and our unemployment rate jumped three percentage points. This means fewer cars on the road. The “study” cherry picked the data. I wonder how much they were paid to conduct this survey and generate the results?

The study is also contradicted by the information presented by James Pinkerton.

Bill you just might be right, well hell I know your always are. But I would rather get hit from behind by someone ramming into me because they were following too closely when I stopped than or be the one doing the ramming in that situation than I would rather have someone broadside me in the intersection from running a red-light. The odds of injury to a me as a driver are less in the first instance.

I know I know though the people have spoken. What does a study like this do except give people a chance to spout off about that having happened in Houston? More heat than light, you know what I mean? Let’s not confuse the facts with the vote.

craig, you’re supposed to be older than 16, right? I don’t know about you, but I ALWAYS look both ways when approaching an intersection. Taught to me back when Jerry Ford was president. In over 35 years of driving I’ve never been hit broadside…

Red-light cameras prevent accidents? Who da thunk? I could have told you that without spending the money on the study. Now if we could get cameras placed so as to catch every last jerk in the act who throws trash out of their vehicles on to our highways. I get real tired of picking this stuff up and looking at the stuff I can’t get to to pick up. If they knew they’d be seen there would be a lot less trash laying around.

The fact that Robert Stein was involved with this tells me that it has no validity. This is the guy that studied these red light camera intersections for Bill White several years ago and found that accidents actually increased at these intersections with cameras, then made up some story that accidents were up all over the city and up a little less at these intersections. He is bought and paid for by Unamerican Traffic Solutions. Take the cameras down, the vocal majority spoke loud and clear last November, and will remember this coming November at the ballot box.

“They found an average reduction of nearly 30 percent — 6.6 collisions a year – at each intersection where a camera was installed. The Rice team’s calculations show that accidents decreased at every intersection.”

Something is wrong then. It’s simply not believable that they would decline at *every* intersection. By random chance they would increase at some in a study of 50 intersections.

I LIVE NEAR MAGNOLIA AND TOMBALL BUT NEVER SHOP OR GO THEIR.
WHEN TRAVELING TO A RED LIGH CAMERA CITY GO 25 MPH THROUGH RED LIGHTS AND NEVER TURN RIGHT ON RED.

THIS WILL STOP ANY TICKET YOU COULD POSSIBLELY GET. THEY SOMETIMES MISTIME THE YELLOW LIGHT AND YOU GET THE TICKET. TURNING RIGHT ON RED YOU MUST COME TO A COMPLETE STOP. IF I ONLY TURN RIGHT ON GREEN I CAN’T GET THE TICKET. SEE THIS IS HOW RETIRED PEOPLE THINK.

YOU FOLKS THAT VOTED FOR THESE PEOPLE TO DO THIS TO YOU CAN LEARN TO LIVE WITH MY CRAP. YOU VOTED FOR THIS. I WILL NOT GET A TICKET FOR YOUR VOTING DESIRES. YOU FOLKS THAT DID NOT VOTE GET IN THE GAME OR LIVE WITH MY DRIVING.

Let’s face it…at least 50% of Houston voters are ignorant retards anyway. I don’t need a study to displace my common sense in knowing that it is a deterrent. Houston is fast becoming an uneducated ghetto city. People just don’t seem to comprehend what a legal contract means. They will take them to court and they will win their settlement because the city defaulted on the contract. It can’t get much simpler than that, whether you agree with the vote or not.

I wish the studies talked about traffic migration, making improvements to intersections, light timing, making signs and lights more visible, discussed rear end collisions going up and comparing them to other counties that were able to get rid of their red light cameras because improvements killed the need for them.